Let the Future In
by Riya3
Summary: Nine glimpses of Hyuuga Hinata's life. Failure, regeneration, quiet strength. Eventual NaruHina.


**Let the Future In – **_**Nine glimpses of Hyuuga Hinata's life. Eventual NaruHina.**_

_**(Not completely canon complaint)**_

_**Warnings: slight Hyuuga-cest (NOT the Hinata/Hanabi kind)**_

* * *

"_There is one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in."_

* * *

When she is six, Hinata tells herself that she is in love.

There isn't any other word that so thoroughly encompasses the emotions her heart – disproportionally large for her small frame – feels. Love is something oka-san felt for her. Now Hinata feels it for the boy with the yellow hair. It is simple, when she explains it to her own, childish mind.

Maybe it's the way he's able to yell and shout like she never can with her feeble, shaking voice. He leaps up in the classroom and laughs heartily in the face of their chalk-powdered sensei, like vibrant life embodied. That yellow-haired, boyish face can absorb all of life while only specks of it ever have the chance to cling to her.

"Hah, the idiot," Kiba chuckles from where he sits besides her, pointing a crass finger. He turns to her with the mirthful eyes of a child. She's learned that only children could be cruel. Older people could shift their eyes and silently follow the trail society leaves them, and their unknowing victims would remain blissfully ignorant of the foam daggers thrown their way.

Children lacked that conscious, reluctant yet life-altering propriety. It was one of the reasons she was never embarrassed of her silent obsession, no matter what others whispered about him.

"Hey, are you ok?" Kiba asks, leftover laughter still holding its ground in his face.

"Y-yes. I am-I am fine." Hinata replies. She turns to watch as Iruka-sensei escorts Naruto-kun out of the classroom.

Stuttering has become a part of her identity, but it doesn't stop her from looking at him. Face downturned. Cheeks flaming red. Willing him with the quiet intensity of her eyes to come lace his fingers with hers and reenact the scene that repeats endlessly in all her dreams. She has never been so ready to dedicate herself to another human being, and the more she tries the further she blends into the backdrop of his life. Until she is like furniture, non-existent when not serving its purpose. Like furniture.

She tries harder than ever.

:::

At the age of ten, she looses to her sister for the first time.

"Are you finished, Hinata?" Her father asks, standing nearby. Arms crossed. Face torn between satisfaction and disappointment.

She tells herself not to give up, struggling to stand. That was what _he_ always said. Naruto-kun didn't give up, and neither would she. Because it didn't matter than she was furniture.

She lives for seeing that vibrant life every day in class before returning to a home of blank eyes and tangled policy, of faces that looked as though reproduced through plastic molds.

When she looks up and sees Hanabi standing there, perfect stance, sharp eyes, beautiful hair – oka-san's hair – her resolve disappears, leaving so quickly it seems almost ashamed to have come.

Her sweaty hands skid against the cold floor. Her eyes are blurry with overuse, yet useless in the face of her own sister. Her sister, who is six and top of her class. Her sister, who never receives otou-san's displeased glares. Who stands there like a symbol of harsh life piling against her, daring her to complain in her stuttering voice. In her eyes is that sense of utter blankness, and she's no longer the little girl whose soft hair Hinata can comb in the peace-lumbered evenings.

She has become the Hyuuga heiress in all but name.

Hanabi won't come to her room and play with her anymore. She'll never look up again with admiring eyes. She won't demean herself to consorting with the sister who she now sees as a merciless splat against the stone floor of the sparring room.

Hinata knows she won't. Because Hanabi is a proud, motherless child who has all the gut-wrenching determination to claw her way through life with the silent force held like a weapon in her blank eyes.

"Yes, otou-san. I concede."

Hanabi bows her head. That one motion defines her. The elegant tilt of her neck, the way her long hair falls across her shoulders like it weighs nothing on her head. She turns to leave for her room.

Hinata lets herself fall back. Otou-san loves Hanabi. He loves her more than anything else, and some part of her – some disillusioned, wretched part that has been beaten down and pressed face-first into cold mud too often – says that he loved Hanabi more than he'd ever loved oka-san.

:::

Long after she becomes a genin, She changes, physically. Becomes less soft, less frail.

Hinata looks at herself in the mirror, running her hands over her stomach and chest and arms. Her muscles develop steadily, pressing roughly against the pad of her fingers. They are firmer than Shino's, not as firm as Kiba's, and they serve their purpose. Her body has become a kunoichi's. She doesn't recall when it had happened, and all she has left to remember of the experience is the touch under her hands.

If only her mind would undergo the same type of transformation. She doesn't care if she forgets that, as long as it happens.

The room is empty and the cold night outside is dark and her futon is soft. She lies down. Slips her fingers under the loose cloth that covers her and protects her during the day. Runs her hands over those new muscles. Higher, over the swell of her still-meager chest. Over one nipple that rose away from the tender skin around. Lower, until her trembling fingers swirl over the place that makes her clench her toes and bite her other hand to quiet her sounds.

Otou-san is out, Hanabi is asleep, the guards are stationed far away. No one will hear her quiet whimpers, whimpers that symbolize the experiences she keeps hidden away like prized artifacts in the corner of her mind.

She doesn't think of anyone, or anything at all. It's the first time she's done this without thinking of anyone. _Without thinking of him. _She doesn't know what to make of it.

Could she become strong like him, without him?

She spills silently into her fingers.

* * *

"_When we are not sure, we are alive."_

* * *

There is a period – somewhere between making chunin and the start of the war – that she cannot remember well. Hanabi wins and wins, and Hinata sees otou-san once, twice a week. Kiba helps his sister Hana with a new litter. Shino is busy with his colony, and they never interact often anyway. Everything passes like a dream and she looses any semblance of a grasp she has on her life.

She thinks of visiting Sakura or Ino or Tenten, and doing the things normal people did. Talking about their missions, discussing village affairs. But the first time she tries, they invite her to the onsen and she refuses. Because she doesn't like the way they will inevitably look at her chest. Jealousy was a painfully familiar feeling.

Instead, she trains with Neji nii-san in the evenings.

"You're improving," he tells her, pulling her up with one strong arm. "Much better than last time. You've been practicing, Hinata-sama."

The sweltering sky above the training grounds is blue like Naruto's eyes.

Hinata nods. "I h-have, Neji nii-san. I don't have m-much else to do." She pauses. "May I come play s-shogi with you, today?" There is nothing else to do.

He looks hesitant. "If … you wish, Hinata-sama."

:::

It still passes like a dream. She has no recollection of how she ends up facing Neji nii-san, with his back pressed to the shogi tables. The pieces clink as they fall to the floor, and each one loosens the thread of his resolve one knot further.

He looks up at her with the blank look the Hyuuga prize so much. She wants to reach out with her still-timid hands and remove it from his eyes.

"Are you sure, Hinata-sama?" Neji nii-san asks, his voice slightly uncertain. But she has always prided herself on seeing below these things, and she can see through the thin, transparent coating that glazes over his lust like a misplaced sense of propriety.

"O-of course, N-neji nii-san."

And then he's turning her over and pulling at her clothes in a worryingly utilitarian way because he's done this before and she hasn't. All too late, Hinata realizes that her one, lone delve into the world of the impulsive is the largest mistake she's ever ran head first into. But she treasures her mistakes just as much as her successes, because if she didn't she would have too little to treasure.

And it's all right, because she thinks Neji nii-san is beautiful anyway.

"Tell me to stop if you need to," Neji tells her, delving into her. The strange, filling sensation overtakes her and she grips his shoulders.

She wonders if he takes more pleasure in the symbolism that accompanies her moans. In the short, true, first-time victory Neji nii-san has ever had against the main house, in a brief period where he can let the still-simmering leftovers of anger shine though.

It's unlikely.

By herself, there are no thoughts. There are only feelings. But she learns in that one night that with someone else, there are often many thoughts. They flit around in her head, forcing her to take back her sense of identity. Forcing her to feel the soft carpet under her back and open her eyes to see Neji's form like beauty incarnate above her.

And then she lets herself move in time with him, and there are only feelings once again.

:::

The memory stays with her, claws out its rightful place in the forefront of her mind for weeks after. She doesn't see him anymore at night, it was meant to be only once. The Hyuuga have the inborn ability to turn their eyes masterfully, and they resume their evening spars like nothing had happened. Neji still gazes at her, but his look is filled with a sort of inner questioning. He looks guilty, slightly disgusted with himself. She can see that he blames himself for thinking that way about a girl who is almost his sister, who doesn't like him in the same way, who had gone to him simply from curiosity and left with him a forbidden aching.

Hinata thinks to let him take care of his own demons. Her are fulfilled. Bright. Like vibrant yellow hair.

One week later, she practices a perfect jyuuken sequence before her father.

There's silence in the practice grounds when she's finished. Neji nii-san and Hanabi stand nearby, along with council members Kou, Tokuma, and Hakumi-san. She remembers each insignificant detail because every insignificant detail is significant.

Hinata stands there with her head bowed. Like Hanabi. Because she has no need for pride, and nothing stops her from mimicking her sister, from borrowing from that exalted willpower just like she'd once borrowed from another.

Hiashi nods. A simple tilt of his head. It is enough.

Seeing that, her shaking hands come to cover her mouth, to stop sobs of joy from escaping. They're impossible to hold in, and for the first time she feels life seep into her instead of draining away.

"Stop that." Otou-san says. "Do not cry like a child. You were adequate. Do not ruin it."

"I won't, otou-san. I won't!" The joyful tears fall anyway.

The next day, she wins against Hanabi for the first time, gently tapping her sister's tenketsu to a close. It is a single victory, almost lost in the expanses of her failures. But it still stands there glowing in the tide, showing the world that her silence has a power of its own.

* * *

"_We are all of us resigned to death. It's life we aren't resigned to."_

* * *

When Naruto returns after the war, no one is sure how to act around him, much less Hinata. For the first time in sixteen years, she is not in love. She is not pining after a yellow-haired, invincible idealist.

She is burying her cousin and her younger sister in the cemeteries behind the clan compounds. She is taking a chisel to the memorial stone and painstakingly carving their names into it, because she won't let anyone else do it for her.

Konoha rebuilds itself slowly, and people look to her with hopeful eyes, expecting her to rise and bring out some type of slumbering strength within her and take her position as their leader. There is no such hidden strength, but what she has is already enough. Hers is a quiet power, but she has learned to use it well.

Otou-san is old, he cannot do much else but mourn his younger daughter, who he loved fiercely and unforgivingly, more than he'd loved anyone else. Hinata understands this, and she keeps her distance from him.

No one knows how to act around Naruto. Her, least of all.

"Oi, Hinata-chan!" He exclaims, seeing her walking away from the Hokage's tower. He runs to catch up with her with all the same enthusiasm that he once had as a boy. The same vibrant life. "I haven't seen you in so long! How have you been?"

"I am well," she replied, giving him a polite smile. He's older now. Wiser. And almost as beautiful as Neji nii-san once was, but in a different way. His yellow hair is longer, unconsciously mimicking his father's. His face has contour, and arcs elegantly from forehead to jawbone. "How has Tsunade-sama been faring?" She asks.

Naruto rubs the back of his head with a sheepish grin. "Ah, baa-chan's fine. Just a grumpy old lady like she's always been. But she's planning on retiring, so, you know…" He trails on, hope unmistakable in his voice. "I thought about travelling, once. Like Ero-Sennin did. But in the end, there's really only one thing I want to do."

She still admires his single-minded dedication, the other aspect that comes with the life he embodies. But she also knows that he speaks to her only because Sakura and Sasuke are still recovering, and it is in his nature to speak.

"Good luck, N-Naruto-kun." Hinata tells him as they part ways at the gates of the compound. She pauses as her hand touches the cold metal of the gates, and she realizes what she's said.

His name is the first word she's stuttered on in three years.

:::

The word 'shinobi' was beginning to mean more for her than it ever had.

Previously, it was like a foam weight around her ankle, something that was supposed to keep her in place but never fulfilled that purpose. Now it resembles heavy chains that slowly morph into pearl-strings when they approach her. She wears them with quiet pride.

Rebuilding the clan is difficult work, and the young Hyuuga jonin who has become her lover barely has five spare minutes of her time. When they do have time – rarely, once a month or so – it's spent under sweaty sheets, with him pulling her on top of him with raw passion, curling his fingers into her long hair and worshipping her in a way that was all too strange.

Hinata notices something else, especially during these times. It's not fair to the Hyuuga man below her, but the thoughts cling to her mind. The slow obsession of her youth is rising once again, and she doesn't know what to think.

_Let it, _Neji nii-san tells her in her dreams later that night. _It's fine. He won't be like me. Someone like him will treasure you. _

_If you want to screw that blond kid, then fine. _Hanabi huffs while her own dream self turns red-cheeked at the crassness of her sister's language. _But it's different if you want to go any further. You have to consider otou-san and the clan. If Naruto deserves you, he'd better become Hyuuga Naruto for you, nee-san. _

But Hinata wakes up with her sweaty hands clenched into her sheets, because she doesn't want someone who deserved her. She wants someone _she _deserves. She doesn't want someone who'll treasure her. She isn't six anymore. She wants someone who will remind her she is alive.

:::

One year later, the head of the Hyuuga clan is called to a meeting with the Hokage.

The psychological change she once dreamed of has long happened, and her mind as grown to blend evenly into the elegance and deadliness of her body. The village and the clan finally lay their full respect on her shoulders, and it weights comfortably little.

Hinata sits in the office, stiffly, wishing it would finish quickly. Because she sees Naruto outside of work, but in this place he is the Hokage and she must represent her clan. There's work to do, after all, and they pressure her to marry and raise her heir. The lover she had the previous year, when she was just twenty, is gone.

Naruto sits on the desk across from her, wearing his rumpled Rokudaime coat. His face never lost the ability to perform that ear-splitting grin. He does it now, and it's more like sunshine than the actual light streaming into the office.

"Hinata-chan!" he exclaims. "You don't need to sit that stiffly, you know. I mean, I'm intimidated enough by the other clan heads, and I like to think I know you, at least."

That made her smile. She nodded and relaxed. "Why did you call me, N-Naruto-kun?" The stutter is slight, but its very existence still confuses her.

"Um … well it's actually nothing terribly important," Naruto scratches his cheek. "I just wanted to know if you would … go for ramen with me today?"

The question confuses her even more. She doesn't like ramen. It isn't something she was brought up to appreciate. She's tried, once, to make herself like it. For his sake. It had been like forcing a fish to live in a bird's nest. It doesn't matter than the fish wished to escape the sea whenever it looked up out of the water, it wouldn't survive long if it accomplished its dream.

Seeing her confusion, he waves his hands around frantically, "ah, that's fine. No ramen, I got it. How about sushi? You like that, right? Gosh, that's expensive … it's a mystery how baa-chan found money for sake in this position …"

Confusion.

"I'm … um … 'courting'. I think that's what it's called," Naruto went on. "Sorry if I'm being weird. This is all Sasuke-teme's fault. I'm never asking him for advice again." He's strangely miserable, in a hopeful way. His blue eyes look out from behind his fringe of yellow hair, and Hinata somehow feels …

He doesn't know, that much is evident. _Naruto-kun _is completely unaware of the intensity with which she once gripped onto his shadow. He is oblivious to all of it. Her breath hitches, and the calm demeanor she's carefully learned to mimic over the years slowly unravels. Her own consciousness is like a child, sitting there in her mind, pulling apart the strings of her carefully threaded mind.

"Well, I've messed his up," he sighs, running a hand through his yellow hair, yellow like _life. _Like what she'd once lusted after before realizing what lust even was. "Hey, can I start again?" He asks.

She nods silently. She simply wants to hear him speak.

"Hinata, will you allow me to take you to dinner this evening?" Naruto asks her seriously. The lines that sound so clearly memorized ruin the effect. Nevertheless, she is overcome with the flood that she once held back so fervently.

He sees the answer in her smile, and that bright grin is splattered across his face once again. "Great! Awesome! When should I come get you? Is eight fine?" He pauses. "Do you recommend any places?"

"I know a nice sushi bar. I will take you there, Naruto-kun," Hinata says simply.

And for the first time in many years, she feels that strange, childish joy. She looks at him, with her toes curled in her shoes. Face downturned. Cheeks flaming red. She reaches out across the Hokage's desk to lace her fingers with his.

* * *

**The quotes are all from Graham Greene. I have to admit that they're present for place-holder purposes, because many are taken out of context, if you've read his books.**

**I dislike how most fics portray Hinata. I want her to have life to write about, and it doesn't always have to be shy/happy. **

**Yes, I did skip the war against Obito. At the very end they're twenty-one. My inspiration piece was quite angsty (somnambulist, by Quillslinger. Don't ask how - it's an ItaShi fic - but maybe it was the tone I tried to imitate).**

**Her experience with Neji was not meant to be sad. It was her first try at being impulsive. Like Naruto.**

**Feedback? I do plan to re-edit this later on, so constructive criticism would be welcomed.**


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